Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

'A concern for Trump's team': Ex-prosecutor shows how DOJ could expand criminal case to D.C.

Donald Trump is already facing dozens of criminal charges, but his legal liability could be expanded in several states and in Washington, D.C, a federal prosecutor said on Saturday.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti appeared on MSNBC, where he was asked about why the DOJ would keep a Florida grand jury seeing evidence while evidence surfaced in Bedminster. Specifically, Mariotti was asked about how Trump's legal team is handling having multiple sources of potential legal liability.

"Well, it's a difficult position for his defense team to be in, because they have to defend against, potentially, a moving target," he said. "They know what the charges are now but they could expand them in the future, and prosecutors always continue to investigate in charges."

Mariotti added that he has used a similar tactic when he brought a case against a real estate developer.

Mariotti also said that he could see criminal cases being brought in Arizona, Georgia, and other jurisdictions lost by Trump. However, he said it was also possible there is a "broad" case merging all these jurisdictions that could be brought in Washington, D.C., where there is already some grand jury activity.

Watch:

'Makes me so angry!': Trump's ex-press secretary lashes out at his sloppiness with docs

Donald Trump has been reckless in his handling of classified documents to the point that it brings his own former press secretary to the point of anger.

Stephanie Grisham, Trump's former White House press secretary and communications director, appeared on MSNBC on Saturday to discuss the newest revelations with Trump's criminal indictment for purported mishandling of classified materials post-presidency. Grisham is first asked by the host if she had ever crossed paths with Susie Wiles, whom many have speculated is one of the aides who was shown a classified document, according to the indictment.

"Yes, I have crossed paths with her, she is pretty well-known in political circles. In fact she used to work for Ron DeSantis, until they had a falling out," Grisham said. "So, I know Trump really needs her in the position that she's in, because DeSantis is his biggest competition at this moment."

She added that, if it's true that Miles was the one allegedly shown a classified document, "That is going to obviously put her in a very awkward position."

"I do believe, you know, I'm sure people all in the Trump world right now are working hard to figure out if it's her, asking her questions. It will just put her in an awkward position. I'm interested to see how it will play out ultimately, because he is not trusting many people right now."

Asked if it is "plausible" that Trump was showing classified documents to people in private meetings, Grisham said: "the short answer is yes."

"I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago, on the dining room patio," she added. "He has no respect for classified information, and never did."

After hearing audio of the alleged meeting in which Trump purportedly showed military documents on Iran, Grisham said, "Listening to that exchange, every time it just makes me so angry."

Watch:

[Joe Elliott]

It is said that Trump is crazy to still insist the Top Secret documents were his and still thinks so and even thinks they should be returned to him. But this is part of his pattern.

Trump is on tape threating the head election official in Georgia with prison if he doesn't award Trump the Georgian Electoral votes. If he refuses to, but three other Secretary of State elections cave in, then perhaps Trump will remain President and use all the resources of the Department of 'Injustice' to send him to prison.

But, if Trump continuously insists the election was stolen from him, continues to insist on this years later, might this not suggest that Trump's state of mind show that he is not really guilty?

Trump is on tape revealing top secret government information to people he is not suppose to still have and to people he is not suppose to be showing this to. But, if years later Trump still insists that he had every right to take these documents, to do with them whatever he wants, and believes the government should return these documents back to him immediately, might this not suggest Trump's state of mind show that he is not really guilty?

There is a pattern to Trump's arguments.

[Rick Plant]

MAGA lawyer Lin Wood gives up his law license ahead of potential disbarment



Local news station WNCT reports that Lin Wood, a conspiracy theory-spouting lawyer who tried in vain to get courts to throw out President Joe Biden's 2020 election win, has asked officials in his home state of Georgia to "retire" his law license ahead of disciplinary proceedings against him that could have potentially led to his disbarment.

With this move, Wood acknowledged that he is now "prohibited from practicing law in this State and in any other state or jurisdiction and that I may not reapply for admission."

Wood is not the only Trump lawyer facing potential disbarment, as attorney John Eastman, the author of the infamous so-called "coup memo" that outlined how Vice President Mike Pence could block the certification of President Joe Biden's victory, is currently facing the prospect of disbarment in California.

In addition to this, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani had his law license suspended for his efforts to keep Trump in power, and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell was hit with sanctions in the state of Michigan for her false claims about the 2020 election in that state.

Read More Here: https://www.wnct.com/news/politics/ap-trump-attorney-gives-up-his-law-license-as-states-weigh-disciplining-him-for-false-election-claims/



Jack Smith subpoenaed Arizona Secretary of State's office in widening Trump election probe

Special counsel Jack Smith earlier this spring issued a subpoena to the office of Arizona's secretary of state in a widening probe of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

According to the Arizona Republic, Smith's office "sought information related to two lawsuits, one from Trump's campaign and another from former Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, that alleged errors and fraud in the 2020 presidential results."

However, the report also claims that Smith's office has yet to reach out to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who came under pressure from Trump to find evidence to overturn President Joe Biden's win in the state.

So far, the focus of 2020 election probes has centered on the state of Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating Trump's efforts to block the certification of Biden's victory, including the former president's infamous phone call in which he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" the 12,000 votes he'd need to overturn his loss.

While Smith has also been scrutinizing Trump's actions in Georgia, he has also been looking more broadly at Trump campaign efforts across the country.

AFP



Judge orders more details of the FBI's search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate be made public

The vast majority of information released thus far in Donald Trump's classified documents trial has been redacted, with large black squares appearing on page after page. That secrecy was reduced Wednesday – but only by a little.

Court documents show that Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered that more details of the justifications given to secure a search warrant letting FBI agents into Mar-a-Lago be revealed to the public. However, he denied the release of the entire affidavit.

It followed a lawsuit from media agencies that requested greater transparency in the case, citing the public interest, NBC News reported. The magistrate ruled "additional portions of the search warrant application should be unsealed," though large portions of it remain restricted.

Some parts of the warrant could be made public, he explained, but he intends to "comply with grand jury secrecy rules and to protect investigative sources and methods."

The DOJ, which fought the news agencies, "has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions of the affidavit are narrowly tailored to serve the Government's legitimate interests and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire search warrant affidavit," the judge also said.

Trump was indicted on seven different laws with 37 counts including retaining national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding documents or records, false statements and representations, corrupt concealing a document in a federal investigation and a scheme to conceal.

He pleaded not guilty at the end of June in the Miami federal court.

The less-redacted version has not yet been posted to the online court system but is expected to be soon.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump wanted his own personal mercenary army like Putin's Wagner force: Ex-Homeland Security aide



Former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor is releasing his second book, "Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump" – and startling excerpts are already dropping.

In a piece in RealClear News Wednesday, Taylor describes Donald Trump's desperation to have his own personal military group, an idea inspired by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Less well known is the ex-president’s envy of private armies, like Putin’s wayward Wagner Group," wrote Taylor. "The former president once sought his own mercenaries and might do so again if he wins back the White House."

He explained that conversations with colleagues in the administration revealed a genuine fear about this Trump "force" becoming a reality.

The idea was first suggested in the summer of 2017, Taylor wrote. Trump wanted troops out of Afghanistan without any withdrawal plan or process. Ironically, a recent State Department report on the Afghanistan withdrawal revealed that there was no plan put in place by Trump for the withdrawal he set for Aug. 30, 2021.

Taylor said that he was still at DHS, fearful that Trump was pulling out too fast, which would allow "terrorists to reconstitute and plot against the United States. Trump, on the other hand, seemed most worried about money. He said he was tired of spending it abroad and wanted to focus on domestic political priorities."

There were several options given to Trump, but the one that he crafted himself was to privatize the war with Trump's own mercenary force. Instead of Putin's Wagner Group, it would be Erik Prince's Blackwater, which offers troops for hire.

"I explained that this was a horrible idea for many reasons, not least of which was that a Trump-controlled mercenary group would circumvent public scrutiny, erode checks and balances around the use of force, and undermine confidence in the American military," said Taylor. "But it wasn’t a mere whim. News of the discussions leaked that top White House advisors had apparently consulted with Erik Prince directly."

He went on to say that there was a "thick briefing memo" that Trump got and it far "exceeded the man's attention span." Taylor feared it increased the likelihood that Trump would go with the mercenaries.

He was forced to take the 50-to-60--page book and put it into one or two pages "in the president's voice" so he could understand it.

"So overnight in my office, I crafted a basic Wikipedia-level primer about why America was in Afghanistan and what was at stake, all in the Trumpian vernacular," Taylor wrote. "The title of the unclassified version felt like a parody: 'Afghanistan: How to Put America First—And Win!' If we pulled out of the country too fast, I wrote, we would be mocked as 'losers' by terrorists. If we wanted to be 'winners,' we needed to fight smarter and harder, then cut a 'great deal' to hand over security to the Afghans. I made no mention of deploying a private army to finish the job."

Trump ultimately agreed, wanting to be "a winner." But a year after that, the mercenary plan came back when Trump wanted to act to overthrow the regime in Venezuela. Trump wanted a 5,000-man team.

Taylor wrote that the top adviser on the National Security Council (NSC) had to write up a memo explaining why that can't happen. For a second time, Trump decided against the "Trump Wagners."

As Trump gains traction in the Republican primary, Taylor said it has become a very real concern that such an idea could return in a second Trump administration.

“Next time we won’t be so lucky,” Taylor quoted a person familiar with the 2017 and 2018 discussions. “We’ll have a military run by mercenaries.”

Trump appears intent on having greater control over the military, Taylor said, and believes that the title of "commander in chief" is all too literal. To him, they were "his" military. He often referred to them as "my generals" and "my military," he said.

"Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump" will be released July 18.

Read More Below 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/07/05/trump_envied_putins_private_army_would_he_want_his_own_149446.html



Ex-senator says Rudy Giuliani is inches from turning on Trump given news of new agreement



Rudy Giuliani has been invited to speak to special counsel Jack Smith more than once, according to multiple reports. One was about the shouting match inside the Oval Office about seizing voting machines and other arguments.

Speaking to former prosecutor and former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO) and legal analyst and former prosecutor Harry Litman, MSNBC substitute host Ayman Mohyeldin asked how much trouble Rudy Giuliani might be in given campaign finance schemes.

McCaskill explained that it was recently revealed that Giuliani is meeting with Smith under a "cooperation agreement." She referred to that deal under the legal word: a "proffer."

"If you're making a proffer, in the federal system, that is a precursor to an agreement to cooperate with the prosecution and turn into a witness against targeted individuals," she said. "This is a big deal because Giuliani was in the federal system. He knows what a proffer means. And if 'proffer' means in this instance that Giuliani is willing to say what really happened, and testify against Donald Trump, in order to save his own skin."

McCaskill also said that it's something that should cause concern for the former president.

"I will beat this drum again: the only thing that bugs me about this proffer is it is occurring in June of 2023. Everyone knew Giuliani was at the center of this mess. Way back in Feb. and March of 2021. Why did it take this long for DOJ to get to the heart of the matter and that is trying to turn Giuliani as a witness?"

Litman agreed, saying that it's an example of Giuliani "scurrying" and thinking "I'm in real trouble now."

"I think that is the short answer," Litman continued. "We don't know if there were overtures made before, but if there were, he resisted them. Now he realizes, 'Gulp, I'm in trouble.' And his lateness might count against him. They might not need him anymore. They might say thanks, but no thanks. We heard your evidence, and we could get it from someone else who decided to cooperate like the elections coordinator had. So he's going in saying please, but he may be too late to the table."

Dennis Aftergut previously wrote for the Bulwark that Giuliani "has every incentive to spill his guts." It comes amid reports that Trump's own lawyers are the ones who have been among the best witnesses for the investigation.

Watch:

The fake electors scheme was 'a straightforward crime': Ex-prosecutor warns Boris Epshteyn



Donald Trump's longtime adviser Boris Epshteyn might be part of the forthcoming indictments involving the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election if former prosecutor Harry Litman is correct.

Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, substitute host Ayman Mohyeldin played a clip of Epshteyn in an interview with Ari Melber on Jan. 22, 2022.

Melber asked about the fake electors scheme, and Epshteyn corrected him, saying that they were "alternative electors."

"It is not fraudulent electors, Ari," said Epshteyn. "It is alternate electors. ... I was part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors for when, as we hoped, the challenges to the seated electors would be heard and be successful. Part of the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act." It is not clear that there is an amendment or "Act" that allows fake electors to be submitted to Congress as if they're real electors.

Mohyeldin laughed at the admission, "I was part of the process to find alternate electors! I mean, Harry, is he not admitting to the false elector plot?"

Litman made it clear that special counsel Jack Smith doesn't need anything else to prove the fraudulent elector's scheme.

"You're 100 percent right and that is funny," said Litman. "And it is not alternate electors. It is fraudulent electors. It's people that sign pieces of paper saying, 'My state, has made me an elector and I'm for Trump,' when exactly the opposite has happened. So, Epshteyn has been a figure here and a very controversial one. He's been responsible for a lot of lawyers abandoning ship. But, yeah, it seems clear from the state level and now to the sort of circle around Trump, that people were very earnest about having false electors. That is just a straightforward crime of defrauding the United States and probably a wire fraud as well. I agree, that is a very good statement for them to use if they call him to the stand."

Another of Trump's campaign officials is already cooperating with the special counsel on the fake electors scheme.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump aide set for third shot at arraignment in Miami. If he can find a local attorney



MIAMI — There are thousands of criminal defense lawyers in South Florida.

But a day before a third scheduled hearing in Miami federal court, an aide to Donald Trump appears still to be without one to represent him on charges of conspiring with the former president to obstruct the U.S. government’s efforts to retrieve classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, according to court records.

Walt Nauta, a Navy veteran who served as a Trump aide in the White House and now works for him as his personal valet, is scheduled yet again for a formal initial arraignment during a court hearing Thursday.

But Nauta, 40, can’t enter his plea, as Trump did on June 13, without a permanent lawyer with credentials to practice in federal court in South Florida. He didn’t have one for the first hearing and missed the second because of bad weather. And, according to court filings, as of Wednesday he had either not picked one or found an attorney willing to represent him in the high-profile and politically divisive criminal case.

His Washington, D.C., defense attorney, Stanley Woodward, told a magistrate judge last week that he would try to resolve the matter by this week, but so far no local attorney’s name has appeared on the case docket. Woodward, who has represented Nauta during the Trump documents probe led by the Justice Department’s special counsel, did not return messages inquiring about his client’s choice for a local lawyer.

Veteran South Florida defense attorneys said there could be any number of reasons for Nauta’s delay in selecting a local lawyer, including the unprecedented case of a former president being charged with a federal crime.

“The fact that he’s in this case gives him a lot of leeway in granting him time to pick a local attorney,” said Kenneth Swartz, a Miami lawyer who represented a defendant in the national security case involving former “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla. “It has not been a long time — not in a case like this. It’s not just high profile — it’s about getting an attorney that he trusts and is free of any conflicts of interest.”

Miami attorney Henry Bell, who has been an advocate for court-appointed lawyers representing indigent defendants over the past decade, said that he thought it would be less challenging for Nauta than Trump to find a permanent South Florida lawyer.

“Nauta is different from Trump — for one thing, he’s not running for president,” Bell said, noting the persistent issue of controlling what a client says about his criminal case in public, on social media and on cable TV news channels.

“I’m a little surprised he hasn’t been able to find anybody to represent him,” Bell said. “He doesn’t carry any of the dynamics that former President Trump does."

For his defense in the classified documents case, Trump has hired New York lawyer Todd Blanche, a who represented former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Miami-based Florida attorney, Chris Kise, who served as the solicitor general during the Republican administration of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Other local lawyers who were approached to represent Trump are David O. Markus, Jon Sale, Ben Kuehne and Bill Barzee, according to sources familiar with the process.

According to The New York Times, Trump has begun diverting more money from his 2024 presidential campaign into a political action committee to pay his personal legal fees.

Last week, Nauta’s Washington, D.C., attorney, Woodward, told Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres that his client could not attend his arraignment June 27 because of bad travel weather in the Northeast, but that Nauta expects to hire a local lawyer for his arraignment Thursday and to appear in court.

Torres found a “good cause” for Nauta’s absence last week. He also told Woodward that if Nauta cannot afford to hire a lawyer and needs a court-appointed attorney, “I can discuss that with him.”

The magistrate judge then reset his arraignment for Thursday in Miami federal court — eight days before a federal judge assigned the national security case plans to discuss the protocol for handling the sensitive evidence of classified documents that form the basis of the 38-count indictment against Trump and Nauta.

Nauta has been charged with conspiring with the former president to obstruct justice by hiding classified documents, withholding government records and lying to federal authorities.

Nauta appeared with Trump at the former president’s arraignment in Miami federal court June 13 but was unable to enter a plea because he had not yet hired a local attorney.

While that first appearance generated a media and political circus outside the downtown courthouse, the June 27 arraignment for Nauta was more subdued, drawing a few dozen reporters and photographers instead of the hundreds who attended Trump’s arraignment.

Nauta, a valet for Trump, faces trial with the former president in the Fort Pierce division of the Southern District of Florida. But a tentative trial date of Aug. 14 is likely to be postponed until at least December or even next year because of the complexity of the case, which involves volumes of classified and unclassified documents, according to court filings by Justice Department prosecutors. Special counsel Jack Smith has asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to set the trial for Dec. 11, but Trump’s lawyers are expected to push for a later date.

Trump, 77, is charged with willfully retaining national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiring to obstruct justice and making a false statement to authorities after they had issued a subpoena for the sensitive materials that he moved from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence and club.

According to the indictment, Trump directed Nauta to move dozens of boxes containing classified documents from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to other areas of the property and then to return some of them to the storage room. He was allegedly told to conceal them from Trump’s attorney and the FBI after the Justice Department obtained a grand jury subpoena for them in May 2022.

Nauta was seen on surveillance video removing the boxes from the storage room before the FBI carried out a search of the former president’s Palm Beach estate last August, according to the special counsel and his team. Federal agents found more than 100 classified materials during the raid, including top secret defense, weapons and nuclear information.

Prosecutors also allege that, in a May 2022 interview with the FBI, Nauta lied that he did not know how the boxes had arrived at the Palm Beach estate, where they were being stored or whether Trump had kept any of them.

© Miami Herald



DOJ had Trump nailed on obstruction long before anyone realized: legal expert



The Justice Department on Monday released a new, less-redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago last year, which formed a critical part of the investigation preceding former President Donald Trump's indictment under the Espionage Act.

There was not an enormous amount of new information in the unredactions — however, one thing that did stick out to former federal prosecutor Elie Honig was new information about the storage room, suggesting federal investigators knew more than previously understood about Trump's orders to subordinates to move around the boxes to hide them from investigators — which forms the backbone of the obstruction of justice charges against him.

"These details, as we know them so far, how significant are they in this affidavit that is now less redacted?" CNN anchor Alex Marquardt asked Honig. "What are we really learning from this affidavit with the details that have not been redacted?"

"Yeah, Alex, so Katelyn [Polantz] said there's new information in there about the storage room," said Honig. "The storage room is pivotal location in this whole story, because the intentional movement of documents by Donald Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta, into and out of that storage room, have now become the basis for the obstruction of justice charges, and so this tells us that DOJ prosecutors were onto that very early."

Another important thing to consider, Honig added, is that "while we in the public are seeing apparently still fairly heavily redacted version of this document, Donald Trump and Walt Nauta, as the criminal defendants in this case, they will get the whole thing."

"They are going to use that as the basis to challenge the legality of the search," Honig continued. "Nothing unusual about that. Virtually everyone who does get searched will bring a challenge. They will argue there was not probable cause or that the search exceeded the legal bounds. So that's an important discovery and motion dispute that's coming up later in this case."

Watch:

Former prosecutor points to clue that Jack Smith is pursuing more charges and defendants



Sensitive documents in the criminal case against Donald Trump have been partially unredacted, but the fact that they are still highly censored points to the possibility that the DOJ is seeking to add more claims or charge more people, according to a former prosecutor.

University of Michigan Law Professor Barb McQuade appeared on MSNBC late Wednesday night to discuss potential changes to the Supreme Court. McQuade was asked about why there is still so much material being covered up in the Trump documents in the Mar-a-Lago case.

She replied, "I still think that the real story is what is left that is redacted."

"And we know from other reporting that the grand jury is continuing to do its work. To continue to investigate. That means there could be additional charges. Or additional defendants who get charged," McQuade said. "And so my guess is that that is the kind of material that they are trying to protect. Ordinarily public documents should be fully unredacted."

McQuade noted that, in the public, in order to have them redacted like this, there has to be "some legitimate law enforcement reason for it."

"And so there could be some witnesses that they are trying to protect. Or some lines of inquiry they are trying to protect. Until they finalize and complete the remaining steps in that investigation, I am very curious to find it what it is."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Arizona's Doug Ducey kept a huge secret for Trump – even as the ex-president destroyed his career: report



Donald Trump likely kept Doug Ducey from mounting a U.S. Senate campaign by branding him as disloyal, but a new revelation shows the former Arizona governor actually kept a secret to protect the twice-impeached ex-president.

New reporting shows Trump pressured Ducey to deny Joe Biden's election win in Arizona, and video shows the former governor was signing the certification for the new president as the ousted president apparently made one last-ditch attempt to change his mind via a phone call. He never revealed details of those Trump's desperate efforts to the public, wrote MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown.

"In his apparent desire to keep the peace with Trump," Brown wrote, "Ducey kept details of the pressure campaign a secret and withheld information the American people deserved to know."

An anonymous Republican donor learned of those efforts while sharing a meal with Ducey, and two other sources confirmed the claims, but the ex-governor failed to alert the public or law enforcement even as Trump set about destroying his political career, and he kept his secret even as election deniers sought high-level offices in his state and cost taxpayers who picked up the tab for investigating bogus claims of fraud.

"Ducey’s reticence is hard to parse," Brown wrote. "It didn’t serve his own political ambitions. It didn’t serve the interests of his party statewide, not when he could have used his voice to push back against the likes of failed gubernatorial candidate-slash-conspiracy theorist Kari Lake. In the end, I can think of only one person whose interests it did serve: Donald Trump — a man who most likely still can’t stand him."

Read More Here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/07/01/trump-2020-election-arizona-governor-doug-ducey/



Ex-Arizona GOP house speaker confirms FBI interviewed him for hours in election probe



Former Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers on Wednesday said he was investigated by federal officers in the special counsel investigation over allegations of election interference.

Bowers said the FBI interview occurred around three months ago during an appearance on CNN Primetime with Kaitlan Collins.

“I offered them nothing new,” Bowers said. “They seem to have a good grasp on all the testimony that I’d given, and all of the interviews that I had given to The Arizona Republic and people from The Washington Post."

“They were very aware of the January 6 committee testimony that I gave. There may have been something that I said that was of interest, but I don't remember anything standing out that had not been mentioned before.”

He said he doesn’t remember turning over any documents to the FBI but noted that he’d given some to his attorney and retains many himself.

“I don’t know if they’re important or not,” he added

“I have ‘proof’, whatever that meant. That was the proof that I'd asked for, but it's hardly the proof that I sought.”

Asked to describe the documents, Bowers said he told Trump administration officials “I want the names of all the illegal aliens. I want the names of all of the dead people, I want the names of all of the service people who had the documents stolen, etc, etc, etc. And they said we've got ’em, we’ll give them to you."

The ex-official added:

"I said that's the proof I need in order to have any semblance of the necessary threshold that you do something this big. Now we're talking about what, a year and a half ago, or more, and that never came but I did finally get what was they considered proof and it was a couple of letters from a legal professor. It was a term paper from one of my colleagues on this theory of law. It was several things that were entertaining and a bunch of tear sheets for ballots, were in the ballot entries and exits of the ballots in their ballot lots that came into the elections officials. There was no names, nothing else. So tongue squarely in my cheek I say it's the proof and and that's all the proof I ever got.”

Watch:

This is a big deal': CNN legal analyst sees signs that Jack Smith's Trump election probe is ramping up



CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said on Thursday that there are real signs that special counsel Jack Smith's probe of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election are ramping up.

In particular, Honig pointed to former Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers' revelation that he had been interviewed by the FBI about Trump's actions in the aftermath of his defeat at the hands of President Joe Biden.

"This is a big deal," he said. "Let's remember, there has been so much focus on the state of Georgia. However, this was really a coordinated, seven-state strategy... and we know that the feds are looking not just at Georgia but also at least at Arizona."

Honig then outlined why it was "a huge deal" that Bowers was interviewed, and he cited the testimony that the longtime Arizona Republican gave to the House Select Committee investigating that Capitol riots last year.

In one particularly damning piece of testimony highlighted by Honig, Bowers said that Giuliani told him to make fraud allegations without solid proof and then just "let the courts sort it out" afterward.

"Crucial testimony there," Honig commented. "And again, we now know that he has spoken with Jack Smith's team."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

On third try, Trump aide arraigned in Miami. He pleads not guilty in documents case



MIAMI — An aide to former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring with the former president to obstruct the U.S. government’s efforts to retrieve classified documents during a brief hearing in Miami federal court on Thursday.

Walt Nauta, a Navy veteran who served as a Trump aide in the White House and now works for him as his personal valet, uttered only three words during the arraignment. When asked by Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres if he had reviewed the indictment, he replied, “Yes, your honor.”

It was Nauta’s third scheduled hearing for what is typically a simple proceeding. Because he did not have a local attorney with credentials to appear in South Florida federal court, he had been unable to enter a plea with Trump on June 13. He missed a second hearing because a flight was canceled due to bad weather and he also had not yet retained a local counsel.

On Thursday, he had one — Sasha Dadan, a Fort Pierce attorney and former public defender, who formally entered his please with the court. His Washington, D.C., defense attorney, Stanley Woodward, also appeared in court.

Nauta now faces trial with the former president in the Fort Pierce division of the Southern District of Florida. But a tentative trial date of Aug. 14 is likely to be postponed until at least December or even next year because of the complexity of the case, which involves volumes of classified and unclassified documents, according to court filings by Justice Department prosecutors. Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to set the trial for Dec. 11, but Trump’s lawyers are expected to push for a later date.

© Miami Herald



New evidence 'overwhelming' in DOJ's Trump Mar-a-Lago docs case: former US attorney

Appearing on MSNBC to discuss the arraignment of Donald Trump aide Walt Nauta in Florida on Thursday, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance stated the new information gleaned from unredacted information released by the DOJ on Wednesday paints a portrait of a case against the former president and his close associate that is "overwhelming."

Speaking with host Andrea Mitchell, Vance claimed Nauta and his new lawyer, Sasha Dadan, have their work cut out for them.

"There will be an enormous amount of pressure on Walt Nauta to cooperate with the government. If he does not, it's almost a certainty he will go to prison for years. He is part of the obstruction of justice in this case and those penalties are very significant," Vance told the host.

'We knew a lot of the information we're seeing in these newly unredacted bits of the affidavit from the indictment itself, but what this does is confirms our understanding that the evidence prosecutors have compiled here is thorough, detailed, it is overwhelming," she continued. "But they will have physical evidence in the form of video showing the number of boxes that were there, boxes that were removed, boxes that attorneys couldn't search."

"That means Walter Nauta and Donald Trump tried to conceal them from the government," she elaborated. "This new evidence only adds to the pressure that will mount on Walt Nauta at some point in these proceedings."

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It's looking like Trump got ratted out by his own lawyer: Former Watergate attorney

Former Watergate attorney Nick Akerman said on Thursday that it's looking increasingly likely that former President Donald Trump got ratted out by his own lawyer in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

Appearing on CNN, Akerman broke down the new information revealed in the less-redacted version of the search warrant that was unsealed this week and he said that there was no way that the FBI could have gotten all this information to justify the search without an inside source.

Akerman said he thinks there's a good case that inside source is Trump attorney Evan Corcoran.

"What this says to me is they have a witness who spelled it out -- maybe more than one witness, I believe it's probably Corcoran," he said. "Because he figured out [Trump and his allies] were playing him and his law license was on the line. And it's likely he went to the FBI afterwards and said, 'This is what happened, you guys have been hoodwinked.'"

Akerman then elaborated about how this would play out in upcoming legal proceedings.

"I think what we're seeing is a preview of what we'll see at the trial itself where you have Corcoran and others testify, and these videotapes are going to be evidence to corroborate exactly what they say on the witness stand," he speculated.

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[Rick Plant]

Trump’s gone 'off the rails' as violent social media messages reach 'another level': analyst



Donald Trump’s reckless use of social media has gone “off the rails” in recent days, The Washington Post reports in an analysis of the former president’s virtual communications that have prompted concerns about the potential for real violence.

The report cites last week’s arrest of a heavily armed man found a few blocks from former President Barack Obama’s home soon after Trump posted an address he claimed to be Obama’s on his Truth Social account.

Taylor Taranto, 37 of Seattle, who had been sought in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, was found to be in possession of a machete, two guns and 400 rounds of ammunition, according to his arrest report.

He was arrested and charged June 30 with being a fugitive from justice, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Taranto shared Trump’s Truth Social Post on his Telegram account, where the Jan. 6 defendant wrote “We got these losers surrounded!” adding “See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s!”

The Post’s Aaron Blake notes that Trump’s Truth Social Post was still on the former president’s website Thursday morning, a week after Taranto’s arrest, suggesting that although Trump’s doxing of Obama could initially have been viewed as unintentional, it now appears to have been no accident.

Blake contends that “leaving it up after all this time must be a choice,” noting that “it’s only the latest evidence of social media posts from the former president that have increasingly gone off the rails.”

“Trump’s posts have never been the staid communications you’d expect from a statesman, but even by his standards, the past week has been remarkable.”

Trump’s incendiary posts on the Fourth of July – suggesting that Smith be “DEFUNDED” and “put out to rest” in one, and in another sharing an image depicting a flag that says “F--- BIDEN” – typify the former president’s increasingly incendiary language.

Blake writes that “Comparing Trump’s social media posts over time is a difficult and subjective exercise. This is a man who often posts extreme memes and vulgarities, obviously bogus election claims and even violent rhetoric.

“But certainly, posting and keeping up the address of a former president who has allegedly been targeted for violence is on another level.”

Read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/06/trump-truth-social-obama/




New details released from Trump search warrant: Security footage ‘core’ of the case



MIAMI — A newly released version of an FBI affidavit for a search warrant of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate adds a few key details of how and when investigators discovered and obtained security camera footage that shows boxes allegedly filled with classified documents being moved around his Mar-a-Lago property.

The information in the affidavit was sought by media organizations after the former president was charged in South Florida last month with deliberately retaining classified materials from the U.S. government. Justice Department prosecutors agreed to disclose some additional portions of the 39-page affidavit for the search warrant dated Aug. 5, 2022, though many parts are still redacted, according to an order issued late Wednesday by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in West Palm Beach federal court.

The Justice Department’s probe had ramped up in May of last year when a federal grand jury issued an initial subpoena for classified documents that Trump had moved from the White House to his residence and club at Mar-a-Lago.

But in June, the case took a crucial turn when a Trump lawyer told a federal prosecutor that there were security cameras near the storage area where investigators suspected some boxes containing classified documents were being kept, according to the partially unsealed FBI affidavit. On June 24, 2022, a second grand jury subpoena seeking the video footage was delivered to Trump’s lawyer.

The partially redacted subpoena asked for the following: “Any and all surveillance records, videos, images, photographs, and/or CCTV from internal cameras located on ground floor (basement) ... on the Mar-a-Lago property located at 1100 S Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach, FL 33480 from the time period of January 10, 2022, to present.”

Though limited, legal experts say the new information is important, helping explain what led to the charges of conspiring to obstruct Justice Department’s efforts to recover classified documents against the former president. That second grand jury subpoena uncovered video surveillance footage that prosecutors say show Trump aide Walt Nauta moving boxes between a storage room and other areas at Mar-a-Lago, before the FBI’s raid in August 2022.

“This evidence is at the core of the case against Trump,” said former U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman, who now heads a Miami law firm.

The security footage contained video images from April 23 to June 24, 2022, as Trump was being asked to return documents. The footage revealed that a Trump staffer, identified as “Witness 5,” was moving dozens of boxes from the storage area to an anteroom and then returning some of them between May 24 and June 2, 2022. FBI agents questioned Witness 5 on May 26, 2022, during which “the location of the boxes was a significant subject of questioning,” according to the partially disclosed FBI affidavit. In the indictment, Nauta is accused of lying to FBI agents on that day about the location of the boxes.

The Trump attorney who coordinated the turnover of the classified records and surveillance footage was Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor turned defense attorney in the Washington, D.C., area. Corcoran, who testified before the grand jury in March, is identified as “Attorney 1” in the indictment charging Trump with willfully retaining national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiring to obstruct justice and making a false statement in connection with the government’s subpoena for records.

In the obstruction conspiracy count, Trump is accused of misleading Attorney 1 — Corcoran — who represented the former president as the lawyer tried to compile classified documents at Mar-a-Lago for the subpoena a year ago. At Trump’s direction, Nauta assisted the former president in this task by moving 64 boxes including some classified documents from the storage room to Trump’s residence and then brought back only 30 of those boxes to the storage room, according to the indictment. On June 2, 2022, Attorney 1 checked the boxes in the storage room and found 38 classified records and set those aside in a folder to turn over to federal investigators.

After Attorney 1 finished sealing the folder with the documents, Nauta took the lawyer to meet with Trump in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, the indictment said. After the lawyer confirmed his search of the boxes in the storage area, Trump said to him: “Did you find anything? ... Is it bad? Good?”

Trump and Attorney 1 discussed what to do with the folder and whether the lawyer should bring them to his hotel and put them in a safe, the indictment said.

"During that conversation, Trump made a plucking motion, as memorialized by Trump Attorney 1,” the indictment said. “He made a funny motion as though — well OK why don’t you take them with you to your hotel and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out,” Attorney 1 memorialized the conversation, as noted in the indictment. “And that was the motion that he made. He didn’t say that.”

On the evening of June 2, 2022, Attorney 1 contacted the Justice Department and asked that an FBI agent meet him at Mar-a-Lago the next day to retrieve the classified documents in response to the subpoena.

However, unsatisfied with the response, the Justice Department obtained a search warrant based on video surveillance of the documents being moved around at Trump’s residence and directed an FBI raid of the Palm Beach estate and club last August, when agents discovered 102 additional government records containing national defense, weapons and nuclear information still on his property.

The seizure of those records, which Trump had removed from the White House when he left office in January 2021, form the foundation of the special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case along with the obstruction charge.

In the indictment, Trump is charged with deliberately keeping documents with classified markings at his Palm Beach estate. It also cites two occasions during the summer of 2021 when the former president allegedly shared classified information about a Defense Department plan to attack a foreign country with a writer, publisher and two staffers at his Bedminster Club in New Jersey. He is also accused of showing a classified map about a U.S. military operation to a representative of his political action committee. But Trump’s sharing that sensitive information is not among the 31 counts alleging violations of the Espionage Act.

"The classified documents Trump stored in the boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the U.S. and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation to a foreign attack,” according to the indictment. It noted that the former president stored them in various locations at Mar-a-Lago, including a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office, his bedroom and a storage room.

© Miami Herald




'This is not normal': Legal expert calls out Trump for 'crowdsourcing' threats against prosecutors

Law enforcement officials involved in prosecuting Donald Trump are facing substantial harassment and threats, and a legal expert called out the former president for "crowdsourcing" violence against his enemies.

Federal agencies said threats against law enforcement was down overall since Trump's indictment in the classified documents case compared to the period right after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago as part of that investigation, but former prosecutor Barbara McQuade told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the individual threats were alarming and highly unusual.

"This is not normal," McQuade said. "From time to time, prosecutors do get death threats, maybe based on someone they're prosecuting, but I think we've reached a whole different era when we're sort of crowdsourcing these threats. Any time former president Donald Trump says these things about witch hunts and hoaxes, calling for the defunding of [the Department of Justice], there is the risk that someone out there is going to hear that and take matters into their own hands and go after these line career prosecutors."

"I've had threats, others have had threats," McQuade added. "The way it is usually handled is the U.S. Marshals Service can provide protection, sometimes including 24/7 protection, but it is very resource intensive. The prosecutors have been better things to do than to be checking in with their security detail and, you know, they have lives. They have children, they have errands to do in their personal lives. So this is a whole new day, if prosecutors have to think twice about whether they can do their job safely."

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Trump aide Walt Nauta must flip or 'it's almost a certainty he will go to prison': Ex-prosecutor

Speaking on MSNBC this Thursday, former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance said that Donald Trump's close aide Walt Nauta, who pleaded not guilty to six federal charges during his arraignment in a Miami federal court Thursday, will be in dire straights if he does not cooperate with the government.

"There will be an enormous amount of pressure on Walt Nauta to cooperate with the government," Vance told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell. "If he does not, it's almost a certainty he will go to prison for years, he is part of the obstruction of justice in this case and those penalties are very significant."

Vance said that newly unsealed evidence that the Justice Department used to obtain a search warrant for Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence presents an "overwhelming" case against Trump and Nauta.

A portion of the unsealed evidence shows Nauta moving boxes days before the Justice Department discovered classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Nauta reportedly removed around 64 boxes from the storage room but only returned around 25 to 30 of them.

"That means Walter Nauta and Donald Trump tried to conceal them from the government," Vance said. "This new evidence only adds to the pressure that will mount on Walt Nauta at some point in these proceedings."

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